Story+1997-05-16+Montpellier,+France

´´Merci....this is a song about a fellow who gets out prison and uh.....trying to find his way back into the world, back into his family....trying to change himself....everybody´s struggled to do a little straight time....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Straight Time´**

´´Thank you.....this is a, uh, song about sudden insight, insight´s usually expensive....uh, unfortunately only comes after you´ve fucked up very badly, most of the time....this is ´Highway 29´....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Highway 29´**

´´Thank you.....I´d appreciate it if you didn´t use those little cameras, uh, no (chuckles).... somebody requested this the other night, he said he was gonna be here tonight so.....last time I was in Montpellier I didn´t play it so (chuckles)....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Point Blank´**

´´(chuckles) Voici un chanson pour mes vieux amis (chuckles)....for my old fans out there.....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´For You´**

´´That was a good try....I picked the guitar out of tune on that, alright (chuckles) this is a song, uh .....wanna get it right tonight ‘cause I got it wrong last night and it seems that I said....´Are there any women with red horses in the house ?’, I’m not sure (chuckles) alright, let me see if I (chuckles) what I’m trying to say is, uh (chuckles) uh, uh (?) femmes aux cheveux, cheveux, not ´chevaux´, cheveux (chuckles)(?)(chuckles) bring out those red horses, you know, I´d like to see those (chuckles)....here’s a song about cunnilingus, uh, favorite pastime in the States but it was probably invented right here in France, I got a feeling (chuckles).... (?)(chuckles)....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ‘Red Headed Woman’ (following ´For You´)**

´´Thank you....I heard those horses....alright, this is for my red headed woman.....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Two Hearts´ (following ´Red Headed Woman´)**

´´Thank you, this is a song, uh.....about men and women....I know those words (?)....uh.... hommes....about women, les femmes.....le....l´amour, sex.....sex.....tres difficile, correct (chuckles) but....(?)....it´s about one of those relationships where, uh.....there´s some good things going on but.....might´ve worked out, like I like to say, if you hadn´t been so busy sort of fucking it up all the time.....and uh.....everybody´s got a few of those along the way.....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Dry Lightning´**

´´(?) alright, this is, uh, Kevin Buell, my friend.....and the only Tom Joad band member, that´s right (chuckles) this is a, uh.....this is, uh, the next four songs are set in the Southwestern part of the United States, uh....I was traveling through Arizona about six years ago and I was in a little motel in this little desert town and uh....it was one of those little, one-story motels, you know, I like to say, where you lay down at the end of your bed and the door´s open, you can reach out and touch your car in the parking lot and know it´s still there, you know (chuckles) but uh, it was just, uh, it was late at night and these two Mexican men came in from the west and came over and started looking at our motorcycles, took the room next to us.....and one had had a younger brother that died in a motorcycle accident in Southern California....and he talked about his younger brother for quite a while.....and uh....I don´t know how people survive that kind of loss, how they get the world to feel right again ....but uh....this is a song about, uh, two brothers who get caught up in the Central California drug trade....and uh, I was thinking of him when I wrote it so I dedicate it to him every night ....my mysterious friend, wherever he might be, this is called ´Sinaloa Cowboys´....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Sinaloa Cowboys´**

´´Thank you.....this is a song about, uh....it´s set on the San Diego-Tijuana, Mexico-border and uh, a lot of young guys come out of the army and they end up going to work for the California border patrol, that´s a confusing job.....and uh, it´s an issue that was pretty badly abused in the last American election, there´s politicians always ready to....to cease on that immigration issue and I think in the States there´s always been people coming across our southern border, doing jobs that nobody else wants to do for a pay that nobody else wants to take and uh.....at the behest of American businesses and in return their kids would have a shot for a better education and maybe some medical care, anyway, this is a song about a young border patrolman trying to figure out where the line really is down there....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´The Line´**

´´This is a song about children, I think once you, once you have your own children, you´re..... sensitive to, uh....to the fate of all children, in some fashion, I always like to say that children are....they got a window onto the grace that´s in the world, it comes, that´s their birthright, every child is born with that and, uh, they bring that grace into your life but it´s the, uh, adults´ job to sort of protect that grace that surrounds them until they´re old enough to, uh, protect themselves and, uh, this is a song about children that don´t have somebody to do that for ´em....and, uh, what happens when that grace is violated and, uh.....you end up lost and out on your own.....at an age when you shouldn´t be, this is about some young kids that come across the Tijuana River into San Diego, to this strip called Twelth Street and Balboa Park .....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Balboa Park´**

´´Thank you....I grew....I grew up in a, thank you, I, I grew up in a house where there wasn´t a whole lot of talk about culture or books or, or the part that those things were supposed to play in your life and, uh, the first thing I really remember was that when I was a little boy, my mother was still a young girl and she liked that rock and roll music, you know, I´d come down into the kitchen in the morning and she´d have the radio on on top of the refridgerator and I´d sit there and eat my cereal and listen to all that great music....and all those records and all the singers, and all those great singers was the first thing that really gave me a sense of the world outside my little town and the idea that there were other lives to be lived than the lives that I saw being lived all around me.....and, uh, there was something in the singers´ voices, their voices were filled with happiness and sadness and, and, uh, fun and sex and, and, uh, it seemed, all, all those records had a little secret message ´There´s a party going on, you´re missing it´ (chuckles) you know.....and uh....for a long time those records really, really sustained me, they still do, they still do and they played the part for me that culture is supposed to play for you, opening up your vision into that world outside, you know.... presenting you with ideas, possibilities....when I was 26, a friend of mine showed me John Ford´s Grapes of Wrath and that movie and the Steinbeck novel did for me what those great records always did....there was something in the film and in the book that I felt like I....that I recognised, in some fashion....and uh....the idea, I guess, the, the movie, the film and the novel were heroic, they were heroic in a very old-fashioned sense that there was a character who was sacrificing for an idea that was bigger than he was, was educating himself and then trying to save himself and to salvage his community against forces much greater than he could (?)....I always found inspiration in the film and in that novel, still do....and uh, this is a song about hope, about the kind of hope that people carry even after there´s no reason to hope sometimes, uh, it´s what makes us human beings, I think....so, uh, I wanna do this for, uh, for you tonight, wishing you the best (makes a dedication in French).....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Across the Border´**

´´No, no, no....I got work to do, can´t be fucking around up here (chuckles)....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Working on the Highway´**

´´(?)(chuckles)....alright.....this is a song about brotherhood, sisterhood, trying to find out where you belong....it´s an immigrant song.....alright.....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´This Hard Land´**

´´(?)(chuckles)....alright, uh.....alright....this is a song, uh, I´d like to thank everybody for coming down to the show tonight, thank you very much.....Montpellier, thank you.....this is a, uh....song set on the Gulf Coast of Texas, it´s about an incident that happened in the mid-80´s in the United States, at the end of the Vietnam War, had a lot of refugees that came out of, uh....South Vietnam and ended up settling in the Gulf Coast of Texas, this is a song, they went into the fishing industry, there was a lot of tension between the Vietnamese fishermen and the Texas fishermen....so this is called ´Galveston Bay´....´´
 * 16.05.97 Montpellier, France, intro to ´Galveston Bay´**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//